Night Duty

Synopsis

Nadine has policed the same few streets since she came out of training, and every one of them knows whose sister she is. Sean drove for a courier firm off Hessle Road that paid cash and asked nothing, and he stopped picking up a fortnight ago. She works the bridge and the last drops on his run on her own time. What she turns up will not fit in a report.

Theme: When family loyalty requires breaking the oath, what is left of a person when the badge is gone?

Story beats

The structural pass, before a line of dialogue exists — what each act has to do.

1. Act 1 — The Cold Metal · 1-30

   Act 1 opens in the sterile, fluorescent quiet of a Hull police station before plunging into the freezing gales of the Humber Bridge at midnight, moving Nadine from routine duty into a catastrophic personal discovery. The act closes with Nadine making the conscious decision to conceal her brother's blood from her commanding officers, stepping across the line from law enforcement to private pursuit.

2. Act 2 — The Dark Waters · 31-90

   Nadine navigates the freezing perimeter of Hull and the industrial docks off the Humber estuary, hunting for trace evidence of her brother outside official police channels. She uncovers escalating debts and dangerous local connections tied to Sean's delivery route, culminating in a violent confrontation that strips away her remaining protective illusions and leaves her completely isolated before dawn.

3. Act 3 — First Light · 91-120

   Act 3 opens with Nadine hunted and isolated in the dark river landscape, pushed past all official protection. It must close with her confronting the loan shark's operation at the abandoned Victorian pumping station before dawn, discovering the devastating truth about Sean and answering the logline's question.

Characters

• Nadine Corrigan
  Protagonist

  Constable (PC) for Humberside Police, assigned to night patrol shifts out of the central Hull station, handling routine complaints, public disturbances, and emergency dispatch responses across the city and the Humber estuary corridor.. Pragmatic, emotionally guarded, and rigidly disciplined under...

• Darren Calver
  Antagonist

  Senior regional debt enforcer and bookkeeper for a Hessle Road loan-shark ring; he audits courier routes, collects arrears through systematic intimidation, and oversees local muscle.. Methodical, cold, and entirely devoid of theatrical cruelty. Darren views his work as a ledger problem rather tha...

• Sean Corrigan
  Supporting

  Independent multi-drop delivery courier operating out of Hull, currently running routes for local commercial freight depots and under-the-table cash distribution rings.. Impulsive, outwardly talkative, and prone to deflecting panic with nervous bravado. Sean treats every problem as something that...

The screenplay

The opening, as formatted screenplay. The full script runs to 91 pages.

ACT 1

INT. HULL POLICE STATION - DESK AREA – NIGHT

The fluorescent strip light overhead hums with a flat, rhythmic buzz. Rain rattles the tall sash windows against the dark outside. 

PC Nadine Corrigan sits at her grey metal desk, her sleeves rolled twice. A half-empty polystyrene cup of tea forms a brown ring on top of an incident report form. 

Her fingers click over the plastic keyboard. Delete. Backspace. Re-type. The blue glow of the monitor reflects in her tired eyes. 

Across the aisle, an empty desk holds a stack of unfiled yellow summonses and a cold radiator. 

The wall clock above the exit door reads 23:14. 

The desk phone beside Nadine's elbow stays silent. The radio crackles with distant dispatch traffic, broken by static. 

Nadine reaches for her pen, signing off another block of text. She stops. 

Her personal mobile phone sits face down beside the keyboard. It vibrates once against the metal surface. A short, sharp buzz.

Nadine does not look down. She keeps writing. 

Another vibration. Longer this time. 

Nadine lets out a slow breath through her nose. She sets her pen down on the blotter, picks up the phone, and presses the side button to light the screen. 

A text message from Sean: Late drop on the east run. Need you to cover for me if the depot calls. Sort it out. 

Nadine stares at the words. Her jaw tightens. She hits the power button, turning the screen dark, and lays the phone back down face-up on the desk.

NADINE
(quiet to herself)
Not my shift.

She picks up her pen again. The nib scrapes across the paper. 

The radio spits out another low-priority complaint about a noise disturbance in Hessle. Nadine ignores it, keeping her eyes fixed on the report form beneath her hand.


EXT. HULL STREET - PATROL CAR – NIGHT

Rain lashes the windscreen of the patrol car. The wipers sweep in a heavy, rhythmic thump, clearing smeared amber light from the streetlamps.

Inside, the cabin smells of wet wool and stale coffee. 

Nadine grips the steering wheel at ten and two. Her knuckles are pale against the dark rubber. Her eyes stay fixed on the glistening tarmac ahead.

The heater hums a low, grinding rattle from the dashboard vents. 

Nadine reaches out and flicks the dial for the blower, turning it down a notch. The silence that follows is thick, broken only by the tyres hissing over standing water.

The digital dashboard clock glows 23:42.

Nadine checks the rear-view mirror. Empty terraced houses slide past in the grey gloom, shuttered and dark.

Script breakdown

Every element the script commits the production to — tagged scene by scene. This is what the schedule and the budget are computed from.

Props

• heavy-duty torch ×3
• crushed cigarette packet ×1
• half-empty bottle of Lucozade ×1
• crumpled clipboard with delivery manifest ×1
• tax disc ×1
• house key with red plastic tag ×1
• shoulder radio ×1
• steering wheel ×5
• heater dial ×1
• indicator stalk ×1
• police radio ×2
• fist mic ×1

Stunts and special requirements

• Physical struggle — Nadine and the security guard grapple, pinning each other against crates and a corrugated iron wall, and exchanging strikes.
• water submersion — Performers stepping into rising, freezing estuarine water and navigating the flooded chamber.
• water slip and fall — Second enforcer loses footing on the metal step and splashes down into the churning current
• Water slip and fall — Second enforcer stumbles backward into the rising current and drops his iron bar

Scene list

Shooting schedule

Scenes reordered out of script order and grouped so the unit moves as little as possible.

• Production market is unanchored and assumes standard professional independent film engagement rules.
• Weather effects (rain, sleet, wind) require dedicated special effects crew and equipment.
• Water stunt sequences in cold storage and docks demand thorough safety precautions and wetsuits for cast.

Call sheet

One day of the schedule, expanded into the document the crew actually receives.

The same film, in sixteen other languages

Each one generated natively, not translated.

• हिन्दी
• বাংলা
• తెలుగు
• मराठी
• தமிழ்
• ગુજરાતી
• ಕನ್ನಡ
• മലയാളം
• ଓଡ଼ିଆ
• ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
• Español
• Français
• Deutsch
• 简体中文
• 日本語
• 한국어